SUMMARY: A morning at the physical therapy department.
I attended a two-hour knee clinic this morning. The physical therapists evaluated each of us briefly. Both of my knees bend equally well, which is good. The right knee failed another test, though: Lie flat on your back. Tighten the front thigh muscle. This is supposed to make your leg completely straight--result on my good knee was that my heel lifted about an inch off the surface. My bad leg--not a flicker of movement in my foot. So that muscle is very much weaker and/or knee has stiffened into an unstraight position.Next, they talked about all the various symptoms of various knee problems. I scored well (as in having most of the symptoms) of both arthritis and patella issues. Bah.
And they talked about posture, alignment, and stuff like that.
Lastly came the explanations and testing of the various exercises.
I now have about 10 minutes of exercises to do every day, and an appointment to come back in two weeks to see whether I've improved.
You've inspired me to pull out my knee exercises. I keep meaning to do them and keep forgetting. They do help. I have an agility friend who had knee surgery and it didn't go well, she has arthritis and could barely walk for over a year, couldn't do agility. She went to my chiro./PT guy, did some PT and got some exercises from him and now she runs (fast) at agility trials, does 12 mile hikes in the mountains, etc. so there is hope.
ReplyDeleteOK, me inspiring you inspires me. Will go do the exercises any moment now.
DeleteWell, a plan is a good start. Now for the follow through! Did the moment of going and doing the exercises come and go yet? :-)
ReplyDeleteI went and did them! Yay me! They take a bunch more than the 10 minutes that the PT said, especially if I do both legs, which he also recommended, even though only the one knee is bad. Maybe I'll do the other leg every other time.
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